1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in a robot for painting vehicle bodies, and more particularly to a robot which is capable of opening and closing a vehicle door painting the interior surface of a vehicle body or peripheral side portions of the door in connection with.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, the automation of the operations of painting the bodies of motor vehicles is advancing step by step with the development of coating robots which are capable of painting even the interior surfaces of vehicle bodies as well as relatively inaccessible peripheral side portions of the vehicle doors and the like.
However, the doors of the vehicle body have to be opened and closed before and after coating the inner side of the vehicle body and peripheral portions of doors as mentioned above. In the conventional coating process, it has been the usual practice to open and close the doors by manual labor of stationed workers, failing to achieve the complete automation of the coating operation. On the other hand, there has been developed robots or apparatus which are designed exclusively for performing the door opening and closing operation, for use in combination with the coating robot. Obviously, the provision of such door handling robots will result in coating equipments which are increased in size and complicated in construction, in addition to increases in cost and complications in maintenance and service of the equipments.